Title: Sugar Critters

Problem Scenario

I choose this experiment to see if ants are more attracted to sweeter foods because I have always wondered what an ant would prefer to eat when they are given something other than grass.

Broad Question

Are insects attracted to sweeter foods?

Specific Question

Are ants more attracted to sweeter foods?

Hypothesis

I hypothesize that the harvester ants will be more attracted to the serving of food with higher amounts of sugar than the serving with lower amounts of sugar.

Graph of Hypothesis

Graph measuring which foods ants are more attracted to.

Variables

Independent Variable:

Amount of sugar in food

Dependent Variable:

Mass of food left

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

Harvester Ants, amount of food, placement of food, amount of light in habitat, size of habitat

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

Mass
Harvester Ant

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General Plan

In this experiment I am going to take a number of ants to see if they are more attracted to sweeter foods. For food I am going to use plain and sweetened gelatin and measure the mass of how much the ants ate afterwards. When the experiment is done I am going to take my data and create a graph comparing which food they were more attracted to.

Potential Problems And Solutions

A potential problem during the experiment could be a number of the ants dying until there are not enough to continue the experiment. If this were to happen I would either have to buy more ants or just continue the experiment.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns

A safety concern I have is the problem of the ants getting free from their habitat.

Experimental Design
(add the correct headings from the experimental design page before beginning)

What is your experimental unit?

This is the base unit of your experiment, for example, one plant, one ice cube, one dish. It is the thing you will be measuring.

Approximately 30 ants and a total of 6 pieces of food.

Number Of Trials: This is how many times you will repeat the experiment.

I will repeat the experiment 6 times, 3 times for each trial.

Number Of Subjects In Each trial:

This is the number of different treatments you will use. For example, if you are comparing rust formation using salt and no salt, there would be 2 subjects in each trial. If you were comparing rust formation with no salt and three different amounts of salt, then you would have 4 subjects in each trial.

I will have 2 subjects in the experiment.

Number of Observations:

How many measurements will you take for each experimental unit times the number or trials

I will take 6 measurements, 3 for each subject.

When data will be collected

Looking for an actual date or dates here. This is requiring you to commit to your project.

2/7/13

Where will data be collected?

Be specific.

In the science classroom or at home.

Resources and Budget Table

Item	Number needed	Where I will get this	Cost
Ants	1 package	Online	4.95

Detailed Procedure

Step 1
Carefully place ants into habitat with adult supervision.
Step 2
Cut and record the mass of two samples of sweet and plain gelatin in their containers.
Step 3
Put each sample into the ant habitat.
Step 4
Daily record the mass of each gelatin sample and replace them with new ones.
Step 5
Repeat this process threes times for each sample.

Diagram

Ant habitats with gelatin samples inside.

Photo List

Size of gelatin samples, ants in their habitats.

Time Line

Procedure, Timeline, and Photo list complete 2/1
Begin Experiments 2/4
Experiments complete 3/1
Analysis 3/7
Discussion/Background 3/15
Wiki complete 3/15
Posters complete 3/22
KMS Science Fair 3/29

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Data Table

Mass Before and After (Grams)

Day 1		Day 2		Day 3
Sugared		Sugared		Sugared
17.768		17.85		17.792
15.903		16.72		16.659
Plain		Plain		Plain
17.74		17.65		17.63
17.728		17.230		17.467

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Data Analysis

All Raw Data

Mass Before and After (Grams)

Day 1
Sugared 17.768, 15.903
Plain 17.74, 17.728
Day 2
Sugared 17.85, 16.72
Plain 17.65, 17.230
Day 3
Sugared 17.792, 16.659
Plain 17.63, 17.467

Graphs

Photos

Ants in their habitat digging tunnels.

Ant crawling toward the gelatin sample.

Results

During this experiment I measured the mass of different food samples after feeding them to a colony of harvester ants. Once I placed the samples into their habitat I waited overnight to take the mass of them again. When I was done weighing them I saw that the ants ate more of the sugared gelatin then the plain gelatin. After recording all the mass of each gelatin sample I observed that the ants were more attracted to the sugared gelatin then the plain gelatin.

Conclusion

I hypothesized that the harvester ants will be more attracted to the serving of food with higher amounts of sugar than the serving with lower amounts of sugar.
I accept my hypothesis because the ants ate 0.996 grams more of the sugared gelatin then the plain gelatin. I observed that the ants preferred the sugared gelatin because they liked to stay inside the container and drag sand inside. After the experiment there was a larger amount of sugared gelatin eaten during the experiment than the plain gelatin.

Discussion

The purpose of my project was to find out if ants preferred sweeter foods when given something else to eat other then grass,seeds, bugs, etc. The question I was trying to answer was, "Are ants more attracted to sweeter foods?" The data in my experiment resulted in the ants eating more of the sugared gelatin than the plain gelatin. The only problem I had during the experiment was when the ants dragged in some sand from their habitat inside the container where the gelatin was in. The sand was a problem because the weight of it effected the mass of the gelatin sample. In the end of my experiment I successfully answered my question with a yes, ants are attracted to sweeter foods. If I were to advance and improve my project, I would have liked to test my experiment on seeing if ants are more attracted to salty foods over sweet foods.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

Some of the benefits of this research to the community and/or science are that this will help other people understand and learn more about ants than what they already know. Doing this experiment has helped me learn more about ants and become more aware of their part in the environment.

Background Research

Harvester Ants- Harvester ants live in North America and mainly eat and use grass to build their nests. When harvester ants build their nests they like to store their food, like seeds and grasses, into what are called granaries. Harvester ants also occasionally eat bodies of insects and spiders. Harvester ants can become very aggressive when defending the colony. To defend the colony harvester ants use a strong sting to protect themselves using their small stingers located on their abdomens.

References

"Globio." Harvester Ants. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2013

Abstract

In my experiment I fed a colony of harvester ants two different gelatin samples, sugared and plain, to see which flavor they preferred. I would first measure the mass of each sample before I fed them to the ants. After 24 hours I would measure the mass of the samples again to see how much they ate. When I was done measuring over a period of three trials I averaged out the mass of the sugared and plain gelatin. The result of the experiment was that the harvester ants were more attracted to the sugared gelatin then the plain gelatin.